Question: The same theme or issue can appear more relevant to life today in

some texts more than others. Compare and contrast the theme of escape in
your studied film, play and novel (4 pages) 880 words?
The theme of escape is presented differently in each text I studied – Small Things
Like These by Claire Keegan, Sive by John B Keane and The Shawshank
Redemption directed by Frank Darabont. In Small Things Like These, the theme is
presented through the story of Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in New Ross,
Wexford in 1985. At first, Bill seems to have nothing from which he would need to
escape. He has a profitable business and a family he loves very much. However,
Bill is not entirely content as he struggles with his inescapable past and the
stigma surrounding it. Also, his present life seems, at times, a little restrictive.
Bill sometimes wonders if he is living the right life and worries that that he is
caught in an endless cycle of “work and the constant worry. Getting up in the
dark and going to the yard, making the deliveries, one after another, the whole
day long.” He is “touching forty” but frets that he is not making any headway in
his life and is simply trapped in a situation that may never “change or develop
into something else, something new.”
Part of Bill’s desire to escape his mundane life stems from his upbringing. He has
not fully come to terms with his past and that often informs his behaviour. He
was born to a young, unmarried mother who only avoided being sent to a mother
and baby home because of the kindness of her employer, Mrs. Wilson, who gave
her a home. Everyone in the community think of Bill’s past as tainting his
character and this prejudice proves inescapable for Bill, even in his adult life. He
recalls that when he went into the registry office for a copy of his birth
certificate, the clerk gave him “an ugly smile” as he handed him a document
with the word ‘Unknown’ where his father’s name should be.
The theme of escape is more literal for the girls in the convent “training school”
than it is for Bill. It is a mother and baby home in disguise and they are treated
very cruelly there. All any of them want is to escape. Bill’s narrative collides with
these girls’ when Bill encounters them, after which it is impossible for Bill to
ignore the reality of what is going on in his home town, something which
everyone knows about on some level but which they ignore.
The first encounter occurs when Bill comes upon a group of unhealthy, poorly
dressed and terrified young women who are polishing the convent’s chapel floor.
One approaches him and asks if he will help her escape. Bill is deeply distressed
by this but is ushered away by a nun before he can help the girl. This distress is
nothing compared to how he feels when he encounters a girl from the convent
for the second time. He discovers a young mother locked in a freezing coal shed
at the convent. Bill knows his mother would have had to endure the same
horrible treatment this girl endures if it weren’t for Mrs. Wilson and this
motivates him to help the girl, Sarah, escape the convent. He escapes his past,
and thoughts of what his life could have been like, by helping this girl escape her
dreadful reality.
The theme of escaping your past is one many people could relate to in today’s
world, although it is much rarer that this is due to them being “illegitimate”
these days. Most societies do not look on having children as an unmarried
woman as shameful the way they used to. Bill’s internal struggle of worrying that
he is not making progress in his life and is stuck in a mundane cycle that he
wants to escape is a universal portrayal of the theme of escape which is very
much still relevant today.

In Sive, the theme of escape is more obvious from the start than it is in Small
Things Like These. The Glavin household is a miserable, oppressive place full of
regret, bitterness and unhappiness. The central character, Sive, is faced with a
dreadful situation that she cannot escape when her aunt decides to effectively
sell her into a marriage with an elderly lecherous farmer who has no interest in
her except for her youth. The majority of the story centres around Sive’s desire
to escape this terrible fate growing as the day of the wedding draws ever nearer.
Mike, like Bill from Small Things Like These, is greatly influenced by his past. He
can’t escape the memory of his dead sister and her shame (she had a child out
of wedlock). He is terrified that Sive could end up in the same situation as her
mother and this drives him to go along with the plan to marry Sive off.
One of the principle differences in the treatment of the theme of escape in the
novel and the play is the reactions of Bill and Mike when presented with the
opportunity to help another person in their efforts at escape. Bill uses his
memories of the past to guide him towards what he knows is the morally right
decision – freeing Sarah. However, Mike is nowhere near as empathetic. Not only
does he refuse to help Sive escape the match with Seán Dóta, but he actively
stops her from being with the infinitely more suitable match for her, Liam Scuab,
who truly loves her. Mike wrongly believes that Sive’s father, Liam’s cousin,
abandoned her mother while she was pregnant and that Liam would do the
same. Liam tries to tell Mike that this is untrue, saying “You know as well as I do
he would have married her.” Unlike Bill with Sarah, Mike fails to help Sive and
therefore fails to escape his past. In fact he will now have to remember Sive and
how his decisions led to her death for the rest of his life.
Like Small Things Like These, Sive shows how people can feel trapped by their
past and want to escape it through Mike’s actions. However, Mike’s idea of
escaping the past is stopping Sive from ending up like her mother as opposed to
Bill’s approach of letting go of his past by helping someone in a similar situation
as his mother was. The theme of escape is also shown in this play through Sive’s
controlling family who do not care about what she wants for herself in life. This
take on the theme of escape is relevant today, in a different way. Although very
few countries would allow such a young girl to be married to a significantly older
man against her will these days, there are other ways that someone’s family
could make them feel trapped. Therefore, I believe the theme of escape appears
with a similar level of relevancy in both Sive and Small Things Like These.
The tragic end to Sive in which she takes her own life broaches the topic of
suicide as this was her way of escaping her terrible fate. This topic is also
relevant in the present day. Suicide is recognized as being the result of mental
health problems like depression these days but this was not the case in the
1950s. When Sive’s family realised she had killed herself they worried she would
not be allowed to be buried in a church graveyard as it was a Christian custom at
the time that people who had taken their own lives were not buried at a church.
The theme of escape is the most obvious in The Shawshank Redemption. Sive
and the girls in the New Ross convent are not openly imprisoned. Both Mena and
the Nuns respectively make an attempt to say they are acting in the girls’ best
interests. However, the inmates of Shawshank prison are legally incarcerated
and nobody stands up for them or cares how badly they are treated. The
conditions in the prison are appalling and it is a given that escape will be at the
forefront of the prisoners’ thoughts, including the protagonist, Andy Dufresne.
Unlike Bill Furlong, it is clear why Andy is desperate for escape as he very
literally has no freedom. One of the first things said to the new prisoners when
Andy arrives at Shawshank is a speech which starts with “you eat when we say
you eat!” which shows the complete lack of freedom Andy will have. Andy’s
situation is so dire compared to the characters in the other texts that we cannot
fathom how he could possibly escape. Bill Furlong has control over his own life,
whether he escapes or not is simply a question of if he will decide to exercise
that control. Sive initially appears to have some chance of escaping her fate as
she has Liam Scuab and her Nana who could help her by dissuading Mena from
marrying her off. However, Andy is completely powerless. The impossibility of
Andy escaping is graphically shown when Andy and his fellow prisoners arrive at
Shawshank. We see the prison’s high walls and security measures such as
guards aiming guns at the new prisoners and the prisoners being chained
together and handcuffed.
The theme of escape is portrayed differently in the film than it is in the novel and
play as the film shows how being deprived of freedom can eventually reduce a
person to a state where they not only give up dreams of escape but actually
come to rely on the system which imprisons them and fear leaving it. The
character Brooks is so institutionalised after fifty years in the prison that he is
distraught when given parole. He almost cuts Heyward’s throat in an attempt to
be kept in the prison. Red understands how Brooks feels, pointing out that Brooks
is an educated, important man in the prison, but “Outside he’s nothin’”.
Shawshank is actually less terrifying to Brooks than the outside world.
The way the theme of escape is shown in the film is applicable in today’s world
as people are still sent to jail today and also because many people feel trapped
in their lives an end up feeling hopeless and unwilling to do the work to get
themselves out of the situation they’re in. However, the main storyline of being
in prison it is not relatable to many people. Even for people who have been in
jail, it is probably not very relatable as most prisons have much better conditions
these days than Shawshank did. They would be monitored more closely to
prevent the kind of abuse the Shawshank inmates suffered. Prisoners feel less
like prisoners with rehabilitation programmes, access to education, better
facilities etc. I would argue that the theme of escape shown in this film is the
least relevant compared to the novel and play for these reasons.